Nimble is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) tool designed for small business, with an emphasis on connecting through social media.

Key Features

Automatically updates contacts

Integrates with an extensive list of social sites

Shares team and customer interactions

Helps turn contacts into customers

Mobile app

Stay-in-touch reminders

Nimble customer relationship management (CRM) manages contacts and scheduling, like any decent CRM, but it doesn’t stop there. The program integrates fully with social media to alert you when something is going on that you should know about.

It is available on computers through browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Nimble also has a mobile app which can be downloaded from Google Play Store for Android users, or the App Store for iOS devices. The cloud-based program makes access from any device easy.

Full Contact Development

Contact management takes on a whole new dimension in Nimble. In fact, the company refers to it as changing each of your clients from a name in a form to a “3D person.” The idea behind it is that when you communicate by email, post updates on social media, and keep notes in a database, your information is scattered and your image of your clients is fragmented. Nimble pulls it all together in one place.

It's a fundamental truth of marketing that to be successful at sales you have to build trust, and Nimble focuses on that by managing information in a way that supports genuine communication and interaction. Nimble supports you by helping you stay on top of the next thing that each of your contacts needs, when they should be contacted, how they should be reached, and why the outreach even needs to happen. It also notifies you of more spontaneous opportunities to connect with the contact, such as when birthdays or new jobs show up in social media.

Extensive Contact Records

The software compiles profile information from email accounts and social media, including LinkedIn, Skype, Yahoo, and Facebook. You are able to save time, since you don’t have to track down or even enter the information beyond the name and email address.

Each contact record includes the usual fields: name, company, address, etc., and Nimble allows you to add tags for each contact and mark each one as “important.” In addition to the basic form, there is a status box which shows at a glance whether the contact has been marked as important and if a “stay in touch” reminder has been set (see below). It also shows when they were last contacted by anyone on your team or at your company. Nimble CRM also notes what pending deals the contact is involved in, along with a date. This section alone provides an immediate overview of how well each contact is being managed.

The most unique aspect of Nimble is its social integration, and each contact report includes what social networks the person is on and who they are connected with in your company, making it easy to arrange introductions, or to delegate communication if there is a person on the team who already knows the contact.

Nimble will perform pattern-match analysis on the contact, and will look for keywords and topics that match the contact’s needs. It reports which ones were found and assigns a “Klout score,” then recommends dismissing or marking the contact as important if either of those apply based on the results.

You can set reminders to prompt yourself to take the next action at the proper time. Sales flows stay organized when team members can be automatically reminded when they need to do something.

Nurtured Relationships

The software not only pulls in information, but it also analyzes the topics that contacts are discussing, and reports on shared interests based on keywords, so that you know why each person is relevant. Teamwork is also facilitated because this feature makes it easy to figure out which member of the team should interact with the contact.

You set up Nimble to watch for certain things, and can be notified of birthdays, job changes, etc. These are perfect opportunities to let the contact know that you know who they are and that you care about them.

One way Nimble manages this is by doubling as a social media listening app. While there are apps that specialize in social media listening -- the act of monitoring specific social media sites or personality targets -- Nimble incorporates it as a CRM feature allowing users to monitor their contacts through social media, respond to them, and maintain relationships using this channel. Nimble will monitor and connect with contacts using social media and let users know about and respond to relevant conversations in this space.

Work from Any Site

Nimble provides a complete “unified inbox” right in your own email account. If anyone that you have connections to is talking about you, or to you, in social media, Nimble’s monitoring system will pull in the information. A sidebar will show information about the sender and let you know if they are relevant to your business. At that point, you can import their contact information and Nimble will create a contact record.

Nimble’s Messages tab provides one place from which to not only check and respond to email, but also manage messages on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Some CRMs require that users make a blind copy of emails to keep them in the system, but Nimble will add them directly to the appropriate contact record from Gmail, Office 365, Android, or iPhone email accounts. Nimble keeps a record of all interactions so you never have to remember which platform or account you used.

Nimble Finds New Contacts

It isn’t only details about your existing contacts that Nimble finds. Through what they call “social listening,” Nimble monitors what’s being said online and lets you know if there’s something you should be aware of. If you decide to add a new person as a contact, Nimble gathers the latest and most significant activity on their social sites and adds it to their contact report.

Nimble’s algorithm is designed to learn from your actions on the site, so that it becomes more effective over time. It can return results that filter out irrelevancies and point to the best opportunities to connect with contacts on topics and interests that mesh most closely with you and your company.

Any CRM can show you what you already know, but Nimble’s unique ability is that it gets information about your contacts that you didn’t know. Since there is so much information constantly being updated on social networks, it compares new data to the user’s focus and only gives importance to things that are a good match, or that you have asked to be notified of (such as birthdays and work anniversaries).

Scheduling to Avoid Missed Opportunities

The software includes calendaring so you can schedule each step of a process, or just set a reminder to initiate a follow-up if there isn’t anything specific to be done.

The software supports building strong relationships by providing keywords and topics that are significant to the contact, and documenting opportunity stages on a calendar, with reminders to make sure a follow up does not get overlooked.

Nimble integrates with a wide range of products through add ons. These include support for email marketing, closing sales, analytics, and lead capture. Some of the more well-known partners are MailChimp, HubSpot, Hootsuite, Constant Contact, Evernote, and Shopify, plus many more.

Account Features

All accounts include unlimited network connections and full access to third-party add-on products. The number of deals that can be documented is also unlimited, but the account includes 5 gigabytes (GB) of data storage. Additional space is available in 25 GB increments for a monthly fee.